While Peninsula Behavioral Health rakes in nearly $20 million a year and its CEO banks more than the Vice President, addicts openly use street drugs steps from senior housing and the commissioners’ boardroom. Fear worked in politics once—will the same leaders admit their MAT clinic promises failed? Plus: John Birch Society pushes back, activists choke timber jobs, and a Board of Health that lectures on “misinformation” while ignoring reality.
PBH’s Golden Paychecks While Addicts Sleep on Rags
Peninsula Behavioral Health employs 167 people with generous benefits and operates on an annual budget approaching $20 million. CEO Wendy Sisk pulls down $264,799. For perspective:
U.S. Vice President: $235,100
Rank-and-file U.S. Senators and Representatives: $174,000
Washington Governor Bob Ferguson: $234,275
Washington state lawmakers: $72,494
Meanwhile, a person—almost certainly trapped by the county’s and PBH’s harm-reduction policies that enable drug use—sleeps on a pile of rags in the PBH parking lot.
Head over to the Port Angeles Goodwill. The courthouse stares back at you, reflected in the glass door, while someone tries to sleep on the steps.
Watch this scene on Peabody yesterday, across from the Port Angeles Salvation Army and just outside a low-income senior housing complex—two blocks from the Commissioners’ Boardroom where they read a proclamation honoring Overdose Awareness Day.
A line of addicts along the sidewalk: the first keeled over with a needle still in his arm; the second slumped under a tarp; the third under a blanket with only feet exposed; a dog tied to a mattress with a woman collapsed on it—the fourth victim in just 30 feet; then the fifth and sixth hovering over foil with straws, hidden behind an umbrella, smoking street drugs. Foil litters the ground; a lighter sits in a bowl of dog food.
Commissioner Mike French says it’s up to us to take back our public spaces. How exactly do you do that when navigating this sidewalk from the courthouse to the bus stop?
A giant cart heaped with garbage sits feet from traffic on First Street, blocking half the sidewalk. Someone is sleeping inside it.
There are millions to be made by keeping these people trapped in addiction. This is the Homelessness Industrial Complex—and it’s Clallam County’s fastest-growing industry.
“Fear Works in Politics” — Chapman & Tharinger’s 2019 MAT Promises Revisited
In 2019, Reps. Mike Chapman and Steve Tharinger defended the then-proposed MAT clinic in Sequim with bold confidence in a Peninsula Daily News article. Critics were dismissed. Concerns about public safety and unintended consequences were waved off as political fearmongering.
“Fear works in politics,” Chapman said at the time, comparing opposition to the MAT clinic to earlier skepticism about needle-exchange programs. “What we really need is pragmatic solutions,” added Tharinger. “I think in the end, you will see fewer people out on the street and less crime.”
Have their statements aged well?
John Birch Society Sign Back—and Now Under Watch
Months after their sign was slashed and vandalized, the local chapter of the John Birch Society has replaced it along Highway 101.
As before, it sits on private property with permission and remains protected free speech. Something is different this time: it’s under surveillance. Anyone caught engaging in property destruction by vandalizing the sign will be turned over to local law enforcement.
Earth Law Center Lawsuit Threatens Timber Jobs and Local Services
According to recently re-elected Clallam Conservation District supervisor Wendy Rae Johnson, activists with Earth Law Center are suing the Washington State Department of Natural Resources in an effort to stop 400 acres of logging in the Elwha Watershed.
That means further restricting timber-sale revenue that sustains county government, hospitals, libraries, schools, and more. It also puts family-wage jobs in the timber, trucking, and manufacturing industries on hold.
Who supports the activists? Port Angeles City Councilmember LaTrisha Suggs and City Manager Nathan West, DNR marker-removers Lisa Dekker and Peter Stedman, police-defunding advocate Brel Frobe, Olympic Climate Action activist Brian Grad, Clallam County Democrat Chair Ellen Menshew, and outspoken communist Tim Wheeler.
The fringe activist class is alive and well, steering policy and slashing funding while taxpayers and residents face service cuts, tax hikes—or both.
Resident on Mike French and the Board of Health
A Port Angeles resident shared this blunt assessment of the Board of Health and Commissioner Mike French:
Board of Health Lectures on “Misinformation” While Reality Burns
The Board of Health, its chair Commissioner Mike French, and Health Officer Allison Berry may not be answering questions at meetings or responding to emails, but they continue rolling out their campaign against “misinformation” on social media.
Remember how to spot misinformation: “Does it sound too good to be true?” Meanwhile, Health Officer Berry claims only one in five homeless people are addicted to drugs.
The Company You Keep — PUD Candidate’s Fair Booth Volunteers
PUD Commissioner candidate Randy Brackett posted on Facebook that he had a great time at the fair, especially with “great volunteers helping to run the booth.”
Who were those great volunteers? Clallam County Democrat Party Chair Ellen Menshew—who promotes a blog that falsely claims my husband and I hire Latino prostitutes—and Sam Woods, who told me at the fair that a militia was forming to round up and execute the gays of Clallam County, including my husband and me.
What’s that old saying about the company you keep?
Indivisible & League of Women Voters
Indivisible activist Jim Stoffer has joined members of the League of Women Voters in a Facebook post promoting socialism.
Don’t Miss Tomorrow’s Candidate Conversation
Don’t forget the upcoming Candidate Conversation between Jake Seegers and Mike French tomorrow, 6:30 p.m., at the Sequim Prairie Grange.
A Different Voice on Residential Schools — Worth Reading
In a powerful first-person account published in C2C Journal, Elaine Ayoungman Clifton—born into the Siksika First Nation—reflects on her ten years at Old Sun Anglican Indian Residential School.
Far from the narrative of pure repression pushed by activists, she describes a warm, caring environment where teachers instilled a love of reading, respected her culture and language, and treated her with friendship and love. She remains grateful for the education and opportunities that shaped her life.
At a time when some seek to criminalize any positive discussion of residential schools, this authentic Indigenous voice deserves to be heard. Read the full piece here.
